Sao Paulo, 8th November - Spyker Squadron, the factory race-team of Dutch super-car manufacturer
Spyker Cars, qualified sixth today for this weekend's last round of
the Le Mans Series; the Mil Milhas Brasil. The 1000 mile-race will be
raced at the only South-American Formula 1 circuit; Interlagos. The
track, famous for its curvy nature with lots of difference in elevation,
lies in the middle of the metropole Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Peter Kox qualified the number 85 Spyker C8 Spyder GT2R, which he will
share during the race with Paul van Splunteren and Mike Hezemans, in
almost tropical conditions. The last few days the weather has constantly
changed and today it was again a question if the GT teams would qualify
in wet conditions or not. Right at the beginning of the twenty minute
qualifying session Peter was one of the first to leave the pit lane. He
set a good time in his first timed lap and could improve his time in all
three consecutive laps with a 1:34.116 as final result. The GT2 class
proves again to be the most competitive class in the Le Mans Series - the
first six cars qualified within a one second window.

Peter van Erp, director of Spyker Squadron: "I had hoped for a
better position but so far the pace of the cars in our class is
unbelievably quick. On the other hand I must admit that one second off
the pace from the pole sitter is acceptable. We have made a lot of
progress in the three free-practice sessions and the tires that worked so
well for us at Silverstone are a bit of concern here. We changed to setup
of the car to cope with the tire temperature and wear and therefor cannot
reach our maximum performance".

Tomorrow the car will be ‘re-built' for the race. Both the
engine and gearbox will be replaced to ensure the highest possible
reliability for the 1000 mile race. The ‘final' setup however
remains undecided depending on the weather forecast for the race-day.
Peter van Erp: "The temperature variations are quite significant
and the only thing that worries me a bit are the potential high
temperatures as seen earlier this week". To further improve the
safety the organization decided to install more lights around the track
as the race will be partly run in night conditions and visibility in the
second free-practice session last Wednesday was poor".

Mike Hezemans: "I have driven here before in January 2006 with the
Corvette C5 and much has changed since then. The track has been
resurfaced and grip levels have improved significantly since. The track
itself is just great, lots of variation but like many tracks a bit
difficult to take over. And this is not the only thing: it always rains
here! The weather forecast does not look too good. So our results really
depend on a good strategy during the race. The car is fine. I think we
are not as close to the leaders as we were at Silverstone but we are not
far off the pace".

Paul van Splunteren: "It is great to drive here with two good
friends (Peter, Mike and Paul all live close to Eindhoven, the
Netherlands) and at the same time an honor to drive with these
professionals! The car is an excellent drive but is quite demanding to
drive it compared to the power-steered cup cars I know. The car is well
balanced and easy to control but it feels like it could use a bit more
power. It is a challenge to get aquatinted with the car and track in the
shortest time possible. I am not a professional driver like Peter and
Mike, both drive every day of the week, so in terms of ‘cpu
power' mine is constantly running in the limiter. But everything
went fine so far and I am really looking forward to the race.

The race will start this Saturday at 12:00 local time (GMT-2) and will be
broadcast live via MotorsTV.